College is over , now what to do ??

We recently celebrated the Independence day , I thought to post this post on that day but couldn’t. Well its here now.

When I was a kid we used to go to a place called Gulab baag (Rose garden), where I played cricket as most young kids do and my mother used to teach my sister how to walk , she was little enough and since the place had a great big garden space, small kids like my sister used to learn how to walk. There was a big library there, where old people used to come to read books and stuffs. We used to have great fun there. Few days back I went there again, with my sister and we played badminton and enjoyed , and my sister told me about a new game , which was a bit odd to the first look but then after some time it gave me a mind full of things. The game was , we sat at a place and saw people around and searched for all those people that we would look like or be like in 20 years in future (20 saal baad aap). At that point of time it was fun and laughs, we pointed the worst as we could become ( filled with inter sibling competition ), but it tickled some deep points inside us that we don’t wanted to become any of those people who we were pointing to. Now I see it as the bigger picture, one day I was switching TV channels , what they show these days specially on the channel which shares its name with our country’s, is funny. (I wonder how good were those Surbhi days) , so among the 104 channels that my TV have I was waiting for one special thing, The President’s annual speech and I loved the way Mrs. Patil spoke in the absolute  of hindi ( I even missed some points which she said due the purity of her language). It had some very good points about the country which would make the country a Maha-Sakti or the Super power. I see people in the Television and others (including Mr Kalam) who believe that India have the potential to become a super power in 2020. It gave me enough material to write this post.

On one side I believe its already the last half of 2010 and only less than 9.5 years are left. But the other side says to be a superpower, you need super people. Super people ( haa, like super man , It’s a Bird It’s a Plane It’s Superman ), now lets define who these super people are ? An obvious answer is the people like Mr. Ratan Tata. But it doesn’t justify the mood, okay Mr Tata has made all of us proud. But there are million others who would’ve made us proud, its just that we didn’t looked at them or they are unsung. I take the example of Parliament’s (Lok Shabha‘s) session which I was watching on DD national, somebody (as on usual days) raised a question on the pollution issues which our country is facing and some other person answered it, stating that on so and so date we had this and this conference and we conclude that and that. The thing that struck me was the confidence of the answerer, I believe nothing substantial would change from the conclusion of that conference. And on that very same day, I heard Ravish Kumar ( a senior reporter in NDTV) saying “Kya aap sochte hain rikshe ke baare mein ?” (do you think about the Cycle Rickshaws?)  and then I thought why not allow these rikshas in the whole country and make this a rule,  well they are cheap , pollution free , can give employment to people and so on and so forth. Then I searched about them on google and came to know about Delhi – capital of India-  that only 99,999 (a small number,  contrasting the population of the city ) rikshas can be licensed and if you are caught without a license then only God can help you ( Reason: if you are a Riksha puller it means you are poor enough and cant deposit the heavy penalty, which forces you to leave the occupation and since you are also illiterate you’ll be having at-least 4 to 5 children and hence you cant afford them also so only God can help you), moreover the government have imposed some more rules that only one person can take one license, fair enough (if you can have only 99,999 rikshas in the city) but again “agar koi chaahe , toh woh 100 Mercedes rakh sakta hai, koi paabandi nahi hai, par 2 rikshe nahi” – a person can have 100 Mercedes, but he cant have 2 rickshaws. Then I thought If I were the Prime Minister ? then I could have changed anything, but mister thats not the story and this is reality. Then, as a true Indian these words came to my mind “Arre kyoun itna dimaag laga raha hai ?” – why I was brainstorming ?  and it diverted my attention away from a very beautiful solution to the problem of pollution.

In Science (especially astronomy ) there is a good old theory called the Big Bang theory (everybody knows that) and as most of the science people think it has made a dent in the universe (read its great) and has revolutionized the way people think to a very old question of humanity “How it all started ?” And there is another relatively new theory which challenges the day to day laws called the String Theory (or M theory) but still, it is helping to answer same old question that we always ask How it all started ?

In India one often hears the words “chalta hai” and many people (including me sometimes)  have this kind of the attitude, isnt it ? Now lets fuse the above two concepts  and ask, how we all started to form the “Chalta hai” attitude, and from where we got this ? the answer would be from here and there, from our forefathers. But do we really believe in it or is that we take it for granted, that the country would work as it always had. Well, see I was born in the last Quarter of 80’s and ever since I’ve opened my eyes and to this date, I’ve seen some very positive changes like the way we (my family) used to be and the way we are now , the standard of living has gone up, the technology has, the thoughts of the people has and also my village used to have kacchi sadak and now it has got a good road. May be thats my case , but I still believe that jaisa chalta raha hai usme kuch change to hua hai, the speed is slow but the motion has started. What I see is we should stop the chalta hai attitude and make sure it doesn’t get passed to the next generation.

Ab “chalta hai” ki baat shuru ki hai toh “adjust kar lo ” bhi ched hi dete hain (trying to be humorous for TRP, cant translate that). We all have favorite examples of our Adjust kar lo moments, mine all time favorites are the ones from my several trips to Uttar Pradesh and God I am amazed how the people live there (Rajathan ki jai).
I give you another example which happened to me in the same context : on usual days I am very lazy to go out on foot to buy things to the nearby market, but one day I was forced to go and buy some things , which I did , but I forgot to take a bag with me (Rajasthan has banned the use of polybags ) and the shop keeper refused to give me a polybag , so jaise taise adjust karke I took the things back home. That day I started wondering, would the state ban can change the way it was, is it a step? Now the real twist in tale came when the Raj Ban indirectly opened ways to provide employment to the poor. Explanation: since the polybags were banned, people started facing difficulties in their usual day to day works, so some group of people (majority ladies) ( I am talking about my city, Udaipur) went to the kabaadi waalas and purchased newpapers & cloths in large quantities and now they have captured the full market and are providing home made paper and cloth bags at low cost. “Kya adjust kara hai“, just according to the situation. I believe people like them teaches us some things, don’t you ?

My idea was to write something about my country, which I really love, on its independence day. I don’t know what the readers would take from this post, but I request them to think and think positive about the country and about the meaning of freedom and being independent. So as Rajul Kuhad (my friend’s sister, who makes very good sketches) posted on her facebook account, thinks that independence doesn’t mean to do things which u want to do but it does mean doing such things which effect people at a right time and in a right way.. (so as I).

Thank you for reading the post, would love to hear you opinions/references/tales.

Music: mera joota hai japaani , patloon englishtaani , sir pe laal topi rusi, fir bhi dil hai hindustaani  .….